Secretly in love
by mirdaishan
Summary: Greg and Morgan have started to date, but they're trying to hide it from everyone else. When a guy from Morgan's past shows up in Vegas, it's getting harder and harder for them to hide their relationship, especially when he seems involved in a case they're working.
1. Chapter 1

**Okay, so I wrote a few one-chapter stories about Greg and Morgan getting together as a couple, but I thought it would be fun to write a story about when they're actually a couple already. Hope you guys like it!**

_**Chapter 1**_

After parking her car Morgan walked through the hallways of the CSI headquarter to the locker room. To her surprise, she only found Greg there. They both looked around and when they didn't see anyone else, they shared a quick, but passionate kiss.  
"You're still coming over after shift, right?" he asked, holding her tight. She smiled at him and ran her finger down his face. "Absolutely!"  
Footsteps down the hall told them someone was coming. They quickly stepped away from each other and changed the subject of their conversation, so that when Sara entered the locker room, all she heard was Greg complaining about a cashier at the supermarket.  
"They're advertising all over the store that it's two for the price of one now, but no, I have to pay for both of them!" Greg complained with a tone of annoyance in his voice.  
"That's completely unfair!" Morgan said, shaking her head. "Oh, hi, Sara."  
"Hey," Sara smiled. "You okay, Greg?"  
"Yeah, just not having a great morning!" he reassured her, while he avoided looking at Morgan. Thanks to her, his morning had been everything but not great!  
"Well, I best go see what Russell has planned for me today," Morgan decided. "I'll catch you guys later."  
She started to leave the locker room.  
"Oh, Morgan, wait!" Sara quickly turned around. "I came to tell you that there's someone here to see you. Someone named Tim Johnson…"  
Morgan frowned. "You sure that's his name?"  
"Yeah, I'm sure," Sara nodded. Morgan groaned. "Please tell me you told him I don't work here anymore or something like that!"  
"Eh, no, sorry…" Sara said, looking slightly uncomfortable.  
"Who's Tim Johnson?" Greg asked. Morgan sighed. "He's this guy I used to work with back in LA. I couldn't stand him! He kept asking me out, he didn't know anything about personal space and when I left LA, he kept calling me every five minutes until I changed my phone number. I was hoping I'd never have to see him again!"  
"Sorry, if I'd known, I would have told him you had transferred to the crime lab in Timbuktu," Sara said with a smile. Morgan smiled too. "Thanks! Well, I better go and face him… Will you come with me, Greg? I may need someone strong to prevent me from doing something stupid to him!"  
"Sure," Greg said with a grin. "Where is he?"  
"I left him in the break room," Sara told him.  
"Alone, I might hope!" Morgan said with a frightened look on her face. Sara bit her lip. "He was talking to Hodges…"  
Morgan put the fakest smile on her face she could manage. "Perfect! Well, I guess it's safe to say my day is pretty much ruined! Come on, Greg!"  
They left the locker room and started for the break room.  
"I'll try to rescue your day after shift," Greg whispered in her ear. Morgan smiled at him. "I know you will…"  
She had force herself not to take his hand when they walked into the break room. Hodges was there alright, talking to a guy with short brown hair and a fake sun tan. When he smiled, he showed a perfect set of teeth, which clearly had been whitened.  
"Morgan!" he exclaimed, jumping up from his chair. He walked up to her and hugged her so tight that even Hodges frowned. Morgan quickly turned her head away so his kiss ended up on her cheek and not on her mouth.  
"Hi, Tim," she said, pushing him back as much as she could. "What a… surprise to see you here…"  
"I just missed you so much!" the guy said with a sad look on his face. "You don't respond to my emails, you don't return my phone calls… Please tell me you haven't forgotten about me!"  
"I could never forget about you," she answered truthfully. If only she could… "I see you've already met David… And this here is Greg Sanders, we work together and we're really good friends."  
If Hodges hadn't been there, she would have immediately introduced Greg as her boyfriend, whatever the consequences of that introduction might have been. She just wanted Tim to go back to LA so she'd never have to see him ever again.  
"Greg, this is Tim Johnson, we used to work together in LA," she said, turning to look at him.  
"Hello, Tim," Greg just said. No 'Nice to meet you' or anything, just 'Hello'. Morgan fought the urge to hug him in front of Hodges.  
"I couldn't believe it when I heard you had left LA!" Tim said, ignoring Greg. "It took me ages to find out where you had gone! Why didn't you choose a crime lab closer to LA? We could have still seen each other on our days off!"  
"What can I say? I just love Vegas," Morgan answered, looking at Greg. Even though Hodges was still there, he quickly touched her hand to let her know he knew what she meant.  
"David here told me all about your father and his mother dating," Tim continued. "We should double date some time, I've never met your father!"  
_And hopefully you never will_, Morgan thought. She managed to smile a little. "As… interesting as that sounds, you'll have to excuse me now, I have work to do. You coming, Greg?"  
He immediately followed her out of the break room.  
"I'll keep your friend company!" Hodges called after them. Morgan stopped, clenched her fists and looked at the ceiling, muttering something Greg could only translate as cursing. After looking around, he put an arm around her shoulder for a moment. "Come on, let it go! We'll go and see Russell and we'll get out of here together, okay?"  
"Okay," she sighed. "Let's hope he has found a murder to investigate in the Sahara desert or something like that, I want to get as far away from that guy as possible!"  
She and Greg walked over to Russell's office.  
"I'll take anything, as long as it's far away from here!" she immediately said. Russell looked up from his papers with a questioning look on his face. Reluctantly Morgan told him about Tim's visit.  
"Aha, I see," Russell said with a nod. "I hate to disappoint you, but the best I've got is a robbery at a hotel just off the Strip."  
"Well, it's not as good as the Sahara desert, but I'll take it," Morgan sighed. "Come on, Greg!"  
"Hold it!"  
Both Greg and Morgan stopped and turned around. Russell got up from his chair. "Are you two going to work this case together?"  
"Yeah, unless there's a problem with that," Morgan slowly said. She tried to look just as confused as Greg.  
"You two have been working a lot of cases together lately," Russell said, taking his glasses off. "Maybe you should work separately for a change."  
"We've solved all the cases we've worked together on the last few weeks," Greg said, still looking confused. "Why break up a team that catches all the bad guys?"  
He felt his heart beating faster than usual. Did Russell know he and Morgan were dating?  
"I guess that's true," Russell hesitantly agreed.  
"Great, that's settled then!" Morgan quickly said before he could say anything else. "Let's go, Greg!"  
They nearly ran out of Russell's office, afraid of what else he might say.  
"Want me to drive?" Greg offered. Morgan nodded. "Be my guest!"

Not long after that, they arrived at their crime scene. It was a small store in a hotel and casino, just off the Strip. Detective Jenkins told them what had happened: "A guy came into the store when there was no one else, threatened the cashier with a gun and left with a load of money. There's no video footage as the camera broke down a few hours before the robbery."  
"That can't be a coincidence," Greg said. "Any witnesses?"  
"None," Detective Jenkins replied. "And apparently no one heard anything either, because when the robbery took place, a band just started to perform in the casino. The music was so loud people on the eight floor complained about it!"  
"Thanks," Greg said before following Morgan under the police tape into the small hotel store. On the left, he saw the typical Las Vegas souvenirs, on the right the products every hotel sold.  
"Nothing of real value here," Morgan said, noticing what he was looking at.  
"And look at the prices!" Greg pointed to the price tag of a towel. "How much money could have been in the register? Two hundred, maybe three hundred dollars at most?"  
"This couldn't have been at the money," Morgan agreed with him, putting her kit down. "Unless it was someone who had lost so much money in the casino he couldn't pay his hotel bill anymore!"  
"I know this hotel, you have to pay for your room when you check in," Greg told her. "And you always have to leave your credit card details, so that if there's any extra charge, they won't have any problems getting the money."  
Morgan gave him a curious look. "How do you know that?"  
"It's not what you think!" he defended himself, knowing that she was thinking he had brought dates to this hotel.  
"How do you know what I'm thinking?" she teased him. He looked at her, but when he saw her smile, he realized that she was really just teasing him… and that detective Jenkins was only a few feet away.  
"Why don't you check the register, then I'll see if I can find out about that camera," he suggested.  
"Sure," she nodded.  
They both got to work and didn't talk for a few moments. Morgan collected a few threads that she would have to get back to Hodges to examine, even though she was pretty sure they were from the robber's clothes. Greg found the camera and managed to collect a few prints off of it. Just as he wanted to go back over to Morgan, he heard a voice he knew all too well: "I'm telling you, that's all I know!"  
He turned around to have his fears confirmed. The girl who had been working as the cashier during the robbery was no one other than his next-door neighbor and best friend Nikki. He immediately hurried to the other side of the yellow tape to see her. "Nikki, are you okay?"  
She smiled at him. "Hey, Greg! Yeah, I'm fine, don't worry. Just a little shaken, that's all."  
"Can you tell me what exactly happened?" he asked, still having the worried look on his face. She nudged him. "Sure, if you stop looking so worriedly! I'm fine, honestly! I was just counting off the minutes until my shift ended when this guy came into the store dressed all in black and wearing a black hat to cover his face…"

_The guy in black pointed his gun at her. "Give me all the money… Now!"  
__Her hand slid down to the alarm button and pressed it. She had no idea how long it would take the police to get here, but at least they had been warned. She looked at the guy and tried to look a lot braver than she felt. "Get out, loser, I'm not giving you any money!"  
__The guy moved a little closer. "I said 'now'! Give me the money!"  
_"_Not a chance!" she said angrily. "Get out of here!"  
__She wondered if he had heard her last words as the music from the casino was so loud now she could barely hear herself.  
_"_Give me the money!" he shouted. Before she could say anything else, he fired his gun. His shot missed her completely and went into the wall behind her, but it had hit her last little bit of courage. She quickly opened the register and started to get the bills out of it.  
_"_Hurry up!" he said, waving his gun. He reached over the counter and grabbed a handful of bills, which he put in his pocket. Another handful went into his other pocket. He then pointed his gun at her one last time before running out of the store._

"Wait… You're telling me the guy only took two handfuls of money?" Greg said. Nikki nodded. "Yeah, that's all. It's a bit strange, don't you think?"  
Greg looked at Morgan, who had walked over to them.  
"Yeah, very strange," he agreed with her. He looked at Morgan again, who now smiled at the young woman. Before she could say anything, Nikki already called out: "Oh, you must be Morgan! I've heard so much about you already!"  
Surprised, Morgan looked at Greg.  
"Nikki lives next door to me," he explained. "We've been friends for years."  
"I see," Morgan nodded. She looked at the young woman and tried to figure out if they could have been dating. _Stop it, Morgan, you're acting as if you're jealous now_, she told herself.  
"Nikki just told me what happened," Greg continued. "Nikki, you said the guy left the store. Did you see where he was going?"  
Nikki pointed to her right. "That way. Means he either went to the elevators or to the emergency exit, there's nothing else that way."  
"Thanks," Greg smiled. "You sure you're okay?"  
"Yes!" Nikki laughed. "Now go on and investigate before _you're_ not going to be okay anymore!"  
After another smile Greg walked off in the direction Nikki had pointed out. Morgan followed him. When she was sure no one could hear them, she said: "She seems nice…"  
Greg turned around to look at her. "You're not telling me that you're jealous of her, are you now? She's eleven years younger than me, she's like my little sister!"  
"Then why didn't you ever tell her about me?" Morgan asked. "You clearly told her about me!"  
"Look, can we talk about this later?" Greg said, afraid detective Jenkins might hear them. "We promised that we'd keep personal and work life separated, remember?"  
Morgan sighed. "Yeah, I remember. I'm just curious why you never told me about her."  
"After shift I'll tell you all about her," Greg promised. "Can we focus now? Why don't you go and find out if there's video surveillance in the elevators? Then we can check if the robber took the elevator."  
"I don't think that's necessary…" Morgan passed the elevators and walked over to the emergency exit. Just in front of it, on the floor, she found a one dollar bill.  
"One dollar?" Greg said, looking at the bill.  
"I'll bet you ten it's from the robber," Morgan said in response, bagging the bill after she had photographed it.  
"Oh, I believe that, but… a one dollar bill? How much money did he actually take?" Greg turned around and walked back to Nikki. "You said he took two handfuls of money from the register. Did you notice what kind of bills he took?"  
"Yeah, he grabbed all the one dollar bills and some of the five dollar bills," she grinned. "I don't think he'll ever get rich if he keeps working like this!"  
Greg looked at Morgan. She could almost read his mind: this was definitely not about money!  
"Do you remember anything about the guy?" she asked Nikki. "Did you notice any piercings, tattoos, unusual things… Scars maybe?"  
Nikki shook her head. "Nothing. His legs and arms were covered, his face was too. I could only see his eyes, they were kinda dark brownish. Oh, I do remember one thing! When he talked, I could see his teeth. They could have been in a dentist ad, cause they were all perfectly straight and white!"  
Greg's mind immediately went back to the smile he had seen in the break room earlier. Tim's teeth were all perfectly straight and white. Could he be the robber they were looking for?


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey guys, thanks for the follows after chapter 1! Hope you'll all like this next chapter!**

_**Chapter 2**_

Back in the car to the CSI headquarters Morgan refused to believe Tim was the guy they were looking for.  
"I can't stand him, but he would never do something like this!" she repeated over and over again. "What Nikki saw, doesn't mean anything! There must be a thousand guys in Vegas with perfectly straight and white teeth, maybe even more! As much as I'd love to put Tim behind bars, you can't just say he did this because of his teeth!"  
"I know," Greg sighed. "I'm sorry, he just popped into my mind when I heard about those perfect teeth!"  
"Trust me, as soon as we find the slightest bit of evidence that points towards him, I'll be more than happy to arrest him, but until we have, we can't say he did it!" Morgan said, looking at him. Greg smiled and took her hand for a moment. "You really hate him, don't you?"  
"Yeah," she immediately responded. "He made it very easy for me to leave LA!"  
"You never told me what it was like for you to leave everything there behind," Greg softly said. She shrugged her shoulders. "What can I say? I had to leave because of everything that had happened with Langston and Haskell. To be honest, it wasn't even that hard to leave LA behind. Working at SID there is totally different from working at CSI here. Here, everyone's like one big family, I like that. Back there, you'd do what you had to do and report to each other. No friendly chats, no dinners together, no 'How are you?' or 'Hey, I heard your mother was ill, how is she doing now?' It was everyone for himself. I didn't mind at first, but after a while I started to feel a little lonely. I had no one to talk to, except some old friends from college who were living on the other side of the state and didn't have a clue what working at SID was like! When Tim first showed up, I thought he might be different, but it only took me a week to find out he was not the friendly person I had been waiting for! He was always around, no matter where I went, he offered to drive me home every day and pick me up, he wanted to go grocery shopping with me, whenever there was a new movie out, he'd ask if I wanted to go and see it with him… One time I made the mistake of saying I couldn't go to the movies with him because I was going out for drinks with an old friend at this popular café and he actually showed up there!"  
Greg was happy he had to stop at a red light so he could look at her.  
"You're kidding, right?" he said. She shook her head. "No… He came over to us at the café and didn't leave until the end of the evening…"  
"You should have said something to your supervisor, this almost sounds like stalking to me!" Greg said, pressing down the gas pedal again. Morgan shrugged. "It only happened that once. I shouted at him for a couple of hours, tried to ignore him for a few days which of course didn't work… And then we just didn't talk about it anymore. I never told him where I was going after work anymore, so he never got another chance to suddenly show up."  
She stared out of the window and saw the CSI headquarter in the far distance. A deep sigh escaped her.  
"Hey, are you okay?" Greg asked, quickly looking at her.  
"I'm just afraid Tim's still at the lab," she explained. "I really don't want to see him again! Especially not since you believe he's the guy we're looking for…"  
"Well, if we're lucky Hodges will have scared him away by now," Greg said, turning on the signal to enter the LVPD parking lot. Morgan playfully hit him on his shoulder, smiling a little bit. "Stop saying such things about David, he's a nice guy! And besides, Tim doesn't scare that easily… I can't believe he found me here, I didn't tell anyone I was going to Vegas, except my mother and my stepfather! Oh, great, he must have gone over to them… Why didn't I tell them how much I hate the guy? Oh, yeah, it's because I stopped telling them about my personal life when I moved out… Great move, Morgan, great move!"  
Greg couldn't help but laugh while she was talking to herself like that. Luckily, she laughed too now.  
"Sorry, I go a little crazy sometimes," she confessed. Greg quickly checked the area before bending towards her. "That's what I like about you…"  
He kissed her and gave her a reassuring smile. "Come on, let's go in, I'm sure he has left by now."  
"Then you don't know Tim yet!" she said, getting out of the car. Greg got out as well and helped her to get all the evidence from the trunk. With their arms full, they walked into the LVPD headquarters. They both noticed Nick standing at the reception desk, but he was too busy talking to the new girl behind the desk to see them. The girl did notice them.  
"Do you need a hand with that?" she immediately asked.  
"Well, we would have asked our colleague, but he's clearly too busy," Greg answered. Nick smiled at him. "Sorry, man, I'll help you out!"  
He took some of the evidence bags filled with video tapes from the security cameras and walked with them over to the layout room.  
"Have you met her yet?" he asked Greg, talking about the new girl at the reception desk. "Man, she's hot! If you're not going to ask her out, I will!"  
"Be my guest, I'm not interested," Greg immediately answered. He avoided looking at Morgan, knowing Nick would notice it.  
"Ah, come on, man, you should go out more often!" Nick said, shaking his head. "All you do is work, I bet you even read crime books at home! Am I right?"  
"What I do when I'm at home, is none of your business," Greg answered as politely as he could. "Now if you'll excuse me, we have some evidence to process!"  
"A little touchy today, are we now?" Nick said. "Sorry I said anything at all…"  
"He's just not having a good day," Morgan quickly said to help her boyfriend. "He had trouble at the supermarket this morning and then he met my rude colleague from LA…"  
"Oh, yeah, that guy Tim!" Nick nodded. "He's been talking to Hodges for a long time… They really seem to be getting along!"  
"Great," Morgan muttered. Greg smiled at her. "I'll go to Trace, you start on the surveillance tapes, okay?"  
"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Morgan sighed. "I owe you big time!"  
Greg bit his lip to keep himself from saying what he thought. If Nick heard him say out loud what he was thinking, he would know straight away about their relationship. He decided to not say anything at all and just started to walk over to Trace. Nick followed him.  
"Hey, Greg, you not wanting to go out with that new girl has nothing to do with Morgan, right?" he suddenly asked. Greg froze. "What do you mean?"  
"Come on, man, you've had a crush on her ever since that first day she walked in here!" Nick laughed. "I think it's pretty obvious by now she's not interested in you, so why don't you just move on?"  
Greg nodded. "Sure, I'll move on. Thanks for the offer!"  
He quickly walked into Trace, leaving a very surprised Nick behind in the hallway.  
"Hodges, I've got something for you to analyze!" he said, ignoring Tim on purpose, who was standing next to him.  
"Oh, hey, Greg, wasn't it?" Tim said however. "David told me you know a lot about Las Vegas. You should show me around! Maybe we can get into the night life a bit too, if you know what I mean…"  
He laughed out so loud Greg frowned his eyebrows.  
"Greg has never been like that when it comes to the ladies," Hodges explained to Tim.  
"What? Why not?" Tim exclaimed. Greg handed the evidence over to Hodges. "Just analyze this, okay? And I'm not interested in the 'ladies' like that, because I've been married for over eight years and I'm a father of three kids, okay? See you later!"  
He left the Trace lab, leaving Hodges behind who was staring at him with his mouth wide open, and went to find Morgan. She just put down her cell phone and looked up with a strange look in her eyes. "I just talked to my mother and she said she never told anyone about me moving to Vegas… She also said she's pretty sure my stepdad didn't tell anyone. How did Tim find out then?"  
"Maybe he found out from your supervisor," Greg suggested. Morgan shook her head. "No, I didn't tell him where I went after I quit. And I can't imagine that my Dad contacted him to ask him questions about how I did my job back in LA…"  
"Look, if you really want to know how he found out, just go to Trace and ask him," Greg said. "Otherwise, let's just forget about how he found out and concentrate on processing the evidence."  
"Sorry, I forgot you just had to see him…" She smiled sympathetically at him. "How did it go?"  
"Fine once I told Hodges I've been married for over eight years and am the father of three kids," Greg grinned. Morgan looked at him, her eyes big with surprise. "You didn't!"  
Greg grinned again. "Just wait for about an hour, by then the whole lab probably knows!"  
Morgan grinned too. "Yeah, probably! Did you say anything about who you married or what your kids' names are?"  
"No, I thought I'd leave that up to you!" he teased, sitting down next to her. To his relief, she didn't look shocked after his words, but actually smiled.  
"We'll discuss that after we've celebrated our five weeks anniversary, okay?" she smiled. "Now, come on, I think I found something!"  
She showed him the footage from the casino floor. "This is a few minutes before the robbery took place, according to what your friend Nikki told detective Jenkins. Everything looks normal, except for this guy here."  
She pointed at a man who was sitting behind a slot machine, wearing black jeans, black shoes and a black sweater. He was hiding something in his hand they couldn't see clearly.  
"His mask perhaps?" Greg guessed. Morgan nodded. "I think so too. You just can't see his face properly… And I can't see if he's carrying a gun… Nikki said he pointed a gun at her and we found a bullet at the scene. If he is the guy we're looking for, he needs to have that gun hidden somewhere! I just can't see it…"  
"Why don't you get that bullet over to Ballistics and I'll see if I can do something about the quality of this footage," Greg offered.  
"And have me walk down the hall all by myself, risking running into Tim?" Morgan called out. "No way!"  
Greg pointed to Sara, who just passed the AV-lab. "No problem, we'll ask her. Hey, Sara!"  
The brown-haired woman walked back to the AV-lab, a questioning look on her face. "What is it?"  
"Are you by any chance on your way to Ballistics?" Morgan hesitantly asked.  
"Afraid of running into Tim?" Sara grinned. "Sure, I'll walk over there for you and if I see Tim along the way, I'll tell him you've got so much evidence to process you won't have time for him the next few _days_, okay?"  
"Thank you!" Morgan sighed. "You're the best!"  
"No problem," Sara smiled. "Oh, and by the way, Greg, why was I never invited to that wedding of yours eight years ago?"  
She smiled again before leaving them alone. Greg looked at his watch. "Twenty minutes… I think it's a new personal record for Hodges!"  
Morgan laughed.  
"We'll congratulate him later," she promised. "Come on, let's see if we can find anything else."  
They continued watching the surveillance tapes from the hotel and casino, but they didn't see anyone else matching Nikki's description except the man at the slot machine. They couldn't see however if he was carrying a gun or what his face looked like. Since they didn't have any results yet from Ballistics or Trace, they concentrated on the fingerprints Greg had found on the camera after Archie had promised to work some more on the video footage. Greg ran the prints through the computer, while Morgan spoke to Nikki's supervisor on the phone.  
"Security said the camera started failing around four A.M.," she told Greg. "They called someone to come and fix it, but no one ever showed up. I did get the number from the company they called, so I'm going to see what they have to say. Did you find anything yet?"  
"Nothing so far, but I wanna check a few other databases," Greg answered.  
"Okay," Morgan nodded. She went back to the phone and called the company the hotel had asked to come and fix the camera. After hearing their story, she went back to Greg.  
"They told me they sent over a man named Frank Bridges to fix the camera, but he was told at the entrance the camera had already been fixed," she told him. "I spoke to Frank myself and he said a guy dressed in black told him everything was fine already. He didn't really remember the guy, just that he was dressed in black… So, that was very helpful!"  
She sighed. Only now she noticed Greg wasn't smiling.  
"What's wrong?" she asked worriedly. He pointed at the screen. "I found a match…"  
She stepped towards the computer to see with whom the fingerprint matched. The photo she saw on the screen made her heart skip a beat. The fingerprint was a match to Tim Johnson…


	3. Chapter 3

**Don't worry, even though I wrote another one-shot story, I didn't forget about this one! Hope you guys like it! Oh, and the Xiomara I mention towards the end of the chapter, is the girl working at Ballistics, or at least: I think she still is... I read online she was the one who started working there after Bobby Dawson, but if anyone knows about anyone else working there now, I'd be happy to hear it! :)**

_**Chapter 3**_

Morgan kept shaking her head.  
"This can't be!" she said. "Tim would never do something like that!"  
"Then why is his fingerprint on a broken surveillance camera?" Greg wanted to know.  
"I… I don't know, but he couldn't have robbed that store!" Morgan refused to believe her ex-colleague would do something like that, in spite of how much she hated him. He worked for the police, why would he suddenly go breaking the law?  
"Look, I understand it's hard to believe someone you know would do a thing like this, but we have to talk to him," Greg softly said, taking her hand. She quickly nodded. "Yeah, you're right. He'll explain this, no problem. Let's go see if he's still talking to Hodges."  
They left the fingerprint lab and walked to Hodges' trace lab. To their surprise, he was alone.  
"Where is Tim?" Morgan asked.  
"Oh, he left," Hodges simply said. "I have your results, by the way. The threads you found at the crime scene were cotton. Nothing special, just black cotton, which is used for a lot of clothes. I know you're disappointed I didn't find anything else, but even guys like me have an off day sometimes! Not often, of course…"  
"Do you know where he went to?" Morgan asked, completely ignoring Hodges' last words.  
"Eh, I think he went back to his hotel," Hodges said, clearly surprised she didn't respond to what he had just said.  
"Do you know which hotel?" Greg asked.  
"No, he didn't tell me," Hodges confessed. "Sorry…"  
Greg looked at Morgan. "Do you still have his phone number?"  
"No, of course not, I deleted his number as soon as I decided to leave LA!" she said. She sighed. "We'll tell detective Jenkins, he should be able to find him."  
"What's going on?" Hodges asked. "Why do you need to find Tim?"  
"Never mind," Morgan quickly said. "Thanks for the results, David, appreciate it."  
She left the Trace lab and went back to the fingerprint lab. Greg, who had of course followed her, softly asked: "Want me to go over to Ballistics and see if they have any results for us?"  
To his surprise, Morgan shook her head. "No, it can wait till tomorrow. Can we go home, please? I need to get away from all of this!"  
"Sure," Greg said with a quick nod. He locked their computer and made sure all the evidence was safely put away before they walked to the locker room together. They grabbed their things and walked outside together as well. If anyone saw them and would start asking questions, they decided Morgan would just say she had car trouble and Greg was giving her a ride home. They didn't run into anyone, however, and as soon as they had left the LVPD parking lot, they could forget about having to hide their relationship. Morgan leaned back into her seat.  
"I just can't believe Tim would be involved in something like this!" she sighed. Greg took her hand and squeezed it gently. "We were going to put this behind us for a while, remember?"  
Morgan smiled. "Yeah, I remember… So, it's after shift, tell me all about Nikki!"  
Greg grinned. "Sure! I'm telling you, you have nothing to worry about! I met her years ago, when her older sister was in my class. I confess, I had a huge crush on her sister back then, but it never worked out! We did meet thanks to her sister, though. You see, her sister knew I had a crush on her, so she figured she could easily use me… She asked me over to her place, knowing I'd see it as a date, but when I got there, she was getting ready to go out with another guy and she needed me to babysit her little sister… The little girl was crying her eyes out, it was so sad to see her like that! It nearly broke my heart, to be honest, so I decided to stay and that was the beginning of our friendship! I babysat her a couple of times more after that and when she got older, I helped her with her homework and she would help me study for my tests. Over the years, we've just gotten really close and we basically tell each other everything. She's my best friend, almost like a little sister! I don't know why I haven't told you about her while I told her everything about you… I guess that for the past few weeks I've just been thinking about you and kinda forgot about her… I'm sorry, I really didn't mean to keep her a secret! But I swear, there's nothing going on between us! I could never date her, not even if they'd pay me to go out with her!"  
Morgan smiled at him. "You don't have to be sorry, especially not after saying you've been thinking about me! Or are you just trying to get me in a good mood?"  
He grinned at her with a slightly guilty look. She grinned as well. "It's okay, I don't have any problems with Nikki! I was just surprised to find out about her, that's all."  
"Just as surprised as I was to find out about your ex-lover from LA?" Greg said. She made a face. "Please! You know why I didn't tell you about him, I was hoping I'd never have to see him again! And you don't honestly believe I would go out with him, now do you? The guy's a living nightmare!"  
Greg parked his car in front of his apartment building and smiled at her. "I thought we were going to forget about him for a while?"  
With a guilty look on her face, she smiled at him. "You're right, I'm sorry… But you mentioned him first!"  
Greg smiled back at her. "My turn to say I'm sorry, I guess…"  
Morgan took his hand and pulled him a little closer. "You're forgiven! But I could still you a little distraction… Any ideas?"  
As answer, he kissed her.  
"I'll take that as a 'yes'!" she smiled, wrapping her arms around him to kiss him again.

A few hours later, they were woken up by the sound of Greg's cell phone beeping. Morgan groaned while she wrapped her arms around him even tighter. "Don't look, please!"  
She could feel he wasn't doing as she was asking.  
"It's a text from detective Jenkins," he told her. "He's found Tim and he's bringing him in for questioning. He wants to know if we want to be there as well…"  
Morgan groaned again. "I want to stay here!"  
She looked up at him and gave him her saddest look. "Please?"  
He looked back at her. "Don't do this, you know I'm no match for your begging look!"  
Slowly she started kissing him, again and again until he finally responded. After a few more kisses they both realized this was going to lead to a whole lot more, which they couldn't give in to right now.  
"After shift?" she asked, slowly kissing him one last time.  
"You bet!" he whispered back in her ear. He stole a quick last kiss before he got out of bed to get dressed.  
"Do you think we have time to go by my house for another pair of clothes?" Morgan asked, sitting up with the covers wrapped around herself. Greg looked at the clock. "I don't know… Detective Jenkins texted me a little while ago already, I'm not sure how long I can keep him waiting…"  
"Never mind then," she decided. "I'll just wear the same clothes two days in a row! That's not a crime, is it?"  
"Maybe it's time to move some of your clothes to my place…" Greg suggested, a little hesitantly. They had only been going out for about a month, wasn't it too soon for something like that? To his relief, Morgan smiled. "Yeah, that's a good idea! We'll go to my place after shift and I'll pack up some stuff that I can keep over here. And maybe you can do the same, that way it'll be much easier to just spend a night together!"  
"Definitely!" he agreed, still happy she didn't think his suggestion came too soon. He wanted to say more, but a beep from Morgan's cell phone told them both detective Jenkins was waiting for an answer.  
"I'll get dressed, you text him back," she decided, tossing him her cell phone.

After they both had gotten dressed and quickly grabbed something to eat, they hurried over to LVPD. In the locker room, they ran into Sara again.  
"Hey, guys!" she greeted them.  
"Oh, hey, Sara!" Morgan said. Unsure, she looked from Greg back to Sara. "I, eh, had car trouble, so Greg offered to give me a ride."  
"That's really nice of you, Greg, especially considering you don't live anywhere near each other," Sara answered. She looked at Morgan. "Weren't you wearing those exact same clothes yesterday as well?"  
"I like this outfit, I wanted to wear it another day," Morgan quickly responded. She smiled nervously. "Nothing wrong with that, is there?"  
"Oh, no, of course not!" Sara said.  
"If you'll excuse us now, detective Jenkins is waiting for us!" Greg ended the conversation. He gently pushed Morgan out of the locker room. As soon as they were walking down the hall, she whispered: "She's onto us, I just know it!"  
"She's not onto us," Greg tried to reassure her. "And even if she is, it's not like she doesn't know anything about sneaking around herself. She kept her relationship with Grissom hidden for ages!"  
"Hmm," was Morgan's only response. They had arrived at the interrogation rooms, so they had to end the conversation. Morgan decided to just watch the interrogation, while Greg went inside with detective Jenkins. Tim was sitting at the table, smiling and looking very comfortable.  
"Hey, you didn't have to bring me in for questioning just to talk to me again!" he laughed. "Where's Morgan? I thought she'd like to see me again!"  
"Mr. Johnson, you're staying at the Paradise Hotel," detective Jenkins said. "Did you know there was a robbery at the hotel's store just yesterday?"  
"Really? No, I didn't know!" Tim said, sounding honestly surprised.  
"You didn't know? Oh… I suppose you don't know either why your fingerprints were found on the security camera in that same store?" Detective Jenkins sounded less friendly already. Tim looked at the photo of the fingerprint Greg showed him.  
"My fingerprint?" he said, still sounding surprised.  
"Yes, your fingerprint," Greg nodded, pointing at the photo. "I found this one, plus a few partials. How did they end up on that security camera?"  
Tim stared at the photo. Suddenly he started laughing. "Oh, I remember! I heard this girl at the hotel store complain to someone else the security camera wasn't working properly, so I offered to take a look at it. Ask Morgan, she knows I'm a genius when it comes to cameras!"  
Greg had no doubt Morgan would have a completely different opinion.  
"So your prints ended up on the security camera because you tried to fix it?" detective Jenkins summarized his story. Tim nodded. "Exactly! Come on, I work for LAPD, you don't believe I would rob a hotel store?"  
Detective Jenkins tried asking some other questions, but Tim insisted his print had ended up on the camera because he had tried to fix it. He denied having seen anyone from the company the hotel had called to fix the camera and when he was asked where he had been during the time of the robbery, he said he had been in his room watching a pay-per-view movie.  
"You can check, I'm sure it shows up on my hotel bill!" he said. Greg excused himself and left the room to join Morgan on the other side of the mirror window. She looked at him with a sad look. "I'm not sure if I believe him anymore… I want to believe him, because the Tim I know would never do something like this, but I just can't anymore… His story is just too vague!"  
"I'll check with Nikki to see if she remembers complaining about the broken camera," Greg promised. "If she does, he might be telling the truth after all."  
"You'd do that for me?" she said, clearly touched by his offer. "That's really sweet of you… I know Tim's a real pain and everything and I know I said I wanted him behind bars, but that was before I knew he might actually end up there…"  
Lovingly, Greg ran his hand through her hair. "I know… We'll talk to Nikki and we'll see what she says, okay?"  
"Okay…" Without thinking about where they were, she hugged him. He knew it was wrong, but he wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. She needed a hug right now, he could sense that and he was more than happy to give one to her.  
"What's going on here?"  
They quickly broke apart and turned around, only to see Morgan's father Ecklie standing in the doorway.  
"Dad, hi!" Morgan quickly put a strand of her hair behind her ear, suddenly feeling very nervous.  
"What's going on here?" Ecklie repeated. He looked angrily at Greg.  
"Dad, it's okay, it's nothing!" Morgan called out, stepping forward. "I was just feeling a little down because one of my ex-colleagues is a suspect in an ongoing case and I just needed a little cheering up, that's all, honestly! We didn't do anything wrong, I swear!"  
Greg decided to keep his mouth firmly shut about last night. He had a feeling Ecklie wouldn't count that as doing nothing wrong…  
"Hmm," Ecklie said, just as Morgan had done before the interrogation.  
"Dad, honestly, it's nothing!" Morgan insisted. "Look, we have something we have to check, I'll talk to you later, okay?"  
Without waiting for his answer, she left the room. Greg quickly followed her.  
"Just keep walking," she hissed through her teeth. "We'll talk about this later!"  
They went to Greg's office, where he called Nikki from his desk phone. The girl denied having complained to anyone about the broken camera.  
"I would never do something like that, I'd get fired straight away!" she said. "And I don't remember anyone coming in to fix that camera. If he touched the camera, it must have happened before I started my shift. I started at six A.M., I've got the early shift all week. Or at least I had, until they closed the store because you guys need to investigate! If they cut my pay check this month, Sanders, I'm having dinner at your place all of next month!"  
"You're more than welcome!" Greg grinned before he hung up. He told Morgan what Nikki had said about dinner first to cheer her up a bit. Unfortunately, she realized what he was trying to do.  
"Tim lied, didn't he?" she said. Greg slowly nodded. "Yeah. I'm sorry, Morgan, but it looks like he's the one who broke the camera."  
She signed. "I know… But it doesn't necessarily mean he robbed the store, does it?"  
"No," Greg reluctantly agreed. "Let's go see what Ballistics has to say, okay?"  
They walked over to the Ballistics lab, where they were told the bullet they had found was a 9 mm, which had been fired from a Glock. Greg didn't want to, but he knew he had to ask: "What kind of gun does Tim carry?"  
Morgan looked at him. "I think you know already… I don't like it, but it really does look like Tim's the one we're looking for."  
With an unsure look on her face, she asked: "Did I really just say that out loud?"  
"Yes," Greg and Xiomara both said at the same time. Morgan sighed. "I was afraid of that…"  
Xiomara shook her head. "I don't get why you're making such a big deal out of this. All I've been hearing is how much you hate Tim and how happy you were that you could leave him behind in LA. If I were you, I'd be totally siked about making him sweat a bit as revenge!"  
The words Morgan answered, came as no surprise to Greg: "I guess I'm not the kind of girl who wants revenge. I just want to forget all about him."


	4. Chapter 4

**Thanks for all the follows, guys! I hope you'll all like this new chapter!**

_**Chapter 4**_

Morgan and Greg left the Ballistics lab and checked with Archie to see if he had any news for them. He had managed to clear up the footage a bit more, so they could see their suspect kept his gun hidden in his right sleeve. His face was still not clearly visible.  
"I'll keep working on that," Archie promised. Greg thanked him before leaving the AV-lab with Morgan. They returned to his office, where Sara was waiting for them. Greg frowned. "What are you doing here?"  
"I heard Ecklie's looking for you," she told him. "And I think I know why…"  
She got up, walked over to the door and closed it before she continued: "How long did you guys expect to keep this all hidden? You're not telling me Ecklie wants to see you just to say 'hi', Greg, he wants to see you because you're going out with his daughter! Don't even try and deny it, I'm the last one you can fool!"  
After looking at each other, they decided not to lie to Sara anymore.  
"Okay, you're right!" Morgan confessed. "Just… please don't tell anyone! We promise we'll be more careful from now on, no one will find out anything, honestly! I'll talk to my Dad and make up some kind of story, okay? Just don't tell anyone… please!"  
Sara sighed. "I must be crazy, but… okay, I won't tell anyone. Just be less obvious about it, okay? If you guys get any less careful, even Hodges will find out! In spite of your story, Greg! How are the kids this morning, by the way?"  
She smiled teasingly at him. He rolled his eyes at her in return.  
"Thank you so much, Sara, I swear we won't get you in trouble!" Morgan promised. A knock at the door ended their conversation.  
"I'll see you guys later," Sara quickly said. She left the office, so Ecklie could enter. Greg felt his heart started to beat nervously.  
"Dad, if this is about earlier, I'm telling you: it was nothing!" Morgan immediately said, trying to hide a sigh. All of a sudden it seemed like everyone was about to find out about her and Greg. "I know it's not exactly appropriate behavior between colleagues, so I assure you it will never happen again!"  
_At least not when you're around_, she added in thought.  
"I'm not here to talk about that, as suspiciously as that looked," Ecklie said to their surprise. "I'm here to talk to Greg about why he has never informed me that he has kids."  
Morgan and Greg looked at each other for two seconds before they both started laughing.  
"You're here to talk about that?" Greg laughed, feeling less nervous already. Ecklie, clearly not understanding their laughter, nodded. "Yes. You should have mentioned it to me, or Russell at least, because there are some special arrangements for parents. Didn't Catherine ever tell you?"  
"Sir, I don't have kids," Greg said, still laughing. "It's just something I told Hodges to get him to shut up. I knew he would probably tell everyone else in the lab, I just didn't realize you'd take it this seriously. I'm sorry about that, but it's honestly just a story."  
"Right." Ecklie nodded and closed a button on his jacket. "I think I'll have a word with Hodges then."  
"Go easy on him, Dad, it was all just a joke," Morgan said with a smile.  
"I'll see what I can do for you," Ecklie answered with a small nod. "How's your case coming along? You said an ex-colleague of you is a suspect?"  
"Yeah, it looks like he's the one we're looking for," Morgan admitted. "We just need some more evidence to actually prove it."  
"I'll let you get back to work then," Ecklie decided and he left Greg's office. Morgan grinned for a moment. "I can't believe he actually believed your story! If he ever finds out about us, it's going to be easy to make something up!"  
"Let's not wait for that moment, okay?" Greg said, looking a little scared. Morgan squeezed his hand. "Don't worry, he won't find out about us!"  
"Then maybe you should stop holding my hand, as much as I like it…" Greg suggested. Morgan quickly pulled her hand back. "Right, sorry! So, what's next? We know what kind of bullet the robber used, we have a blurry face from a security camera, we know the robber's sweater is made of cotton… How do we prove Tim is or isn't the guy we're looking for?"  
"He said he was watching a pay-per-view movie during the robbery," Greg remembered from the questioning. "Let's first check if that's true."  
He contacted the hotel and found out Tim did really order a pay-per-view, which was on during the robbery.  
"Not much of an alibi, he could have easily left it on while he left the room," Morgan said. Greg nodded. "I agree! But… luckily for us, the hotel uses card keys with a chip in them which tells the computer exactly when a guest leaves or enters the room! They emailed me a copy of the details for Tim's room, I have it right here."  
He moved away from the computer, so Morgan could look at the screen.  
"The robbery took place around 8.30 in the morning," she knew. "That's at least when the band started playing and since we know Nikki was looking at the clock just before it all happened, we can be pretty sure that's the exact time. Tim left his room… at 8.10 in the morning."  
"That's twenty minutes before the robbery took place," Greg said, looking at her. "He would have had plenty of time to take the elevator downstairs, wait in the casino for the band to start playing and then go to the hotel store."  
"Let's see when he came back…" Morgan looked at the screen again. "Hmm, he didn't return to his room until a few hours later. He then stayed in his room for a while until he left again. Probably to come here, because he was already here when our shift started."  
"What did he do during those few hours?" Greg asked, talking more to himself than to Morgan. "He still has the gun from the robbery, he can't just keep hiding it in his sleeve! I know he was wearing a baggy sweater, so it's probably not visible to everyone straight away, but… he can't just keep it with him while he's going out? And he has the money too… It's not much, but still…"  
"Maybe he used it to buy breakfast somewhere," Morgan suggested. Greg looked at her again. "Would you go and buy breakfast somewhere with a gun hidden in your sleeve?"  
"No," she admitted. "But then again I never would have believed Tim would rob a hotel store…"  
She sighed and stared at the screen. Greg fought the urge to hug her. If they wanted to keep their relationship hidden, then hugging her at work wasn't the best idea! That's why he just said: "We need to find those clothes and the gun. Why don't we go back to the hotel and see if there's any place near the emergency exit where he could have hidden at least the gun. We could check his room too…"  
Morgan sighed again before she said: "Yeah, you're right. Do you think we'll need a warrant to search his room?"  
"I have a feeling he'll co-operate if you give him an extra smile," Greg teased her. She looked at him and gave him a half-smile. "Ha, ha, very funny. Let's just go, okay? I wanna get this over with!"

After speaking to detective Jenkins, they left for the Paradise Hotel with two police officers. First, they searched the area just outside the emergency exit to see if the robber could have hidden his gun and clothes somewhere over there. All that was outside of the door was an empty parking lot, though.  
"Not even a dumpster, not even a trashcan!" Greg sighed. "Unless he dug up one of the sidewalk tiles, I think it's safe to say he didn't hide anything here!"  
Morgan agreed with him.  
"Of course it's possible he hid everything further away from the hotel, but let's just go to his room first of all," she said, looking everything but happy about it. Greg gave her a reassuring look, which was all he could do as long as the two police offers were around.  
Tim's room was on the sixth floor of the hotel. When he saw them after opening the door, he gave Morgan a huge smile. "I knew you'd come to see me again!"  
"I'm not here to talk, Tim," she said seriously. "We're here to search your room."  
"Ah, come on, Morgan, you don't believe I had something to do with that robbery!" he called out. She still didn't smile. He shook his head. "Come on, honey, you know I would never do something like that!"  
"If you haven't done anything, I'm sure you won't mind us searching your room," Greg said, seeing how horrible his girlfriend felt about all of this. He didn't want her to have to go through this any longer.  
"No… of course not," Tim said, now looking at Greg. "I guess you'd like me to step outside…"  
"Please," Greg nodded. He waited till Tim had stepped into the hall before he entered the room. It was a standard hotel room: bed in the middle of the room, a little cupboard against the wall, the door to the bathroom on the right and of course a terribly artistic painting above the bed.  
"Where do you wanna start?" Greg asked Morgan. She shrugged her shoulders. "I don't care really… Want me to check the bathroom?"  
"Sure," Greg said. He put down his kit and started to search the room. He first checked the small cupboard, but all the drawers were empty. Next, he checked Tim's suitcase, which contained nothing unusual. The rest of the room didn't seem promising, so he went over to the bed. He pulled back the sheets one by one until he reached the matrass. Since he still hadn't found anything useful, he lifted the matrass to see if there was anything hidden under it. To his surprise, he found a photo album lying on the bottom of the bed. He carefully picked it up and opened it.  
"Oh… my… God…" He felt he was about to faint when he looked at the photos. This couldn't be true!  
"Morgan!" he called out.  
"Did you find something?" She came out of the bathroom with her hands up to prevent her wet gloves from dripping on her shirt. "Please tell me you did, because you don't want to know where I have been checking!"  
She took off her gloves and threw them into her opened kit.  
"You should take a look at this," Greg said. Morgan almost didn't recognize his voice. She took a clean pair of gloves from her kit and walked over to him. "What did you find?"  
Without saying another word, Greg showed her the photo album. He saw her eyes grow larger with astonishment.  
"How did he… When did he…" Morgan stared at the photos in front of her in shock. All of the photos were of her: walking down the street, drinking coffee with her mother, even sunbathing at the beach!  
"He has been following me!" she stammered. "He has just been following me for years! He's even got pictures of me when I'm at home! This is sick!"  
Greg agreed with her, even though he loved to comment on the photo of her in her bikini.  
"This was taken at the airport!" Morgan said, pointing at a picture on another page. "That's how he must have found out I was moving to Vegas… I can't believe he followed me!"  
"Well, at least we can arrest him for…" Greg started, but Morgan interrupted him: "Oh my God, Greg! Look at this picture!"  
She showed him the picture on the last page of the album. She heard Greg gasp. "That was taken outside my house!"  
They stared at each other.  
"He's been outside your house?" Morgan whispered. "He must have seen us together… What if he tells anyone? What if he has pictures of us together?"  
"No," Greg immediately said. "I think we're all agreed here that he's interested in you. Seeing you together with another guy is not something he'd want to remember, so he would never take any photos of us together. But he'll probably know we've been dating, so we can't exactly confront him with this picture without risking that everyone's going to find out about us…"  
He sighed so deep Morgan smiled a little.  
"Come on, I found something in the bathroom you need to see," she said. She walked back to the bathroom and closed the door after Greg had entered as well. Smiling, she put her arms around him. When he looked surprised, she grinned. "Hey, if we're supposed to keep our relationship hidden, then we have to be creative!"  
She kissed him and wrapped her arms around him a little tighter.  
"Everything's going to be alright," she told him with her sweetest smile. "Look on the bright side: at least now I have a reason I can give him why I never want to see him again!"  
Greg grinned for a moment.  
"That's true!" he smiled. He quickly kissed her. She ran her hand through his hair and smiled at him. "Thank you for not saying anything about that bikini picture."  
He grinned again. "Yet, right? You know I'll want that picture when we've solved this case!"  
The beep of a cellphone interrupted their laughing.  
"It's Archie," Greg said. "He managed to clear up the video footage. There's no doubt about it: Tim's the one we're looking for."  
He showed her the picture Archie had texted him. Morgan slowly nodded. "Okay, that's it then. You're right: no doubt about it anymore… I'll tell the police officers to bring him in. Let's see what we can put him behind bars for the longest: robbery… or stalking."


	5. Chapter 5

**Hey guys, another update for you! Thanks for continuing to follow my story, adding it to your favorites and of course for the reviews!**

_**Chapter 5**_

While Greg drove back to CSI, Morgan, who was sitting next to him in the car, kept flipping through the photo album.  
"I still can't believe he has been following me all those years," she said, looking up at him. "I know he always managed to show up wherever I was working in the lab, but this…"  
"You don't have to worry about him anymore," Greg reminded her with a smile. "The police officers are bringing him in to question him about the robbery and they're going to keep him locked up because he has been stalking you for all those years."  
"If I tell them…" Morgan softly said. She stared out the window and missed the surprised look Greg gave her.  
"What do you mean?" he asked. He knew Morgan hadn't given the police officers a reason to take Tim back with them, she had just said 'Bring him in'. He just didn't know why she didn't want to tell them now.  
"Because maybe I'm not ready to deal with this right now," she said. "I just found out he has been taking pictures of me for years and that he saved those pictures and put them in an album, which he even brought on his vacation… I don't think I'm ready to confront him with it just yet…"  
"But, Morgan, he has been stalking you!" Greg said with a voice that was a mix of worry and anger.  
"I know, Greg, I have the proof right here!" Morgan responded, sounding slightly angry. "He has been stalking _me_, not you, so it's my decision when I deal with this, okay? I decide that I'm not going to deal with this right now. Detective Jenkins can question him about his gun, but we're not going to say anything about the photo album."  
"Okay," Greg quickly said, afraid that anything else he'd say would make her even angrier. Her tone had hurt him a little inside because it was the first time she had used it since they had started going out. He understood that everything that was going on annoyed her, but didn't she understand he just wanted her to be safe? He was just afraid Tim was going to get away with the stalking, escalate and then do something worse to her than just taking her picture. That thought scared him so much he almost wanted to tell the police officers himself about the photo album, but he knew that was an even worse idea than continuing to talk to her. Maybe Tim would get arrested for stalking and be unable to do anything to Morgan, but it would guarantee the end of their relationship.  
They continued their drive back to CSI in silence. When they were just a block away, Morgan suddenly asked Greg to pull over for a moment. He did as she asked and parked the car along the side of the road. Awaitingly, Greg looked at her. His heart skipped a beat when she smiled at him and squeezed his hand gently.  
"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to get angry at you. I know you're just worried about me, but you don't have to be. I just need some time to get over this, that's all. When the right time comes, I will confront Tim with this, honestly. I won't let him get away with this, trust me!"  
"I trust you," he answered softly. She squeezed his hand again. "I know you do… So, am I forgiven for kinda shouting at you?"  
He smiled back at her, unable to hide the love he felt for her in his eyes. "Of course you are!"  
"Not quite the answer I was hoping for…" she confessed, slightly pulling him towards her to show him what she meant. He smiled again before he kissed her.  
"I'll give you even more of an answer after shift," he promised her. She grinned at him. "Deal! Now let's get going again before they start wondering if we got lost along the way!"

Because neither of them really wanted to be at Tim's second interrogation, they just advised detective Jenkins on what to ask and then waited for his report.  
"He still denies everything," he told them. "And he says he left his gun in LA, in a safe at his house. According to him, our video tech just did a bad job…"  
"Did he offer to take over?" Greg asked while rolling his eyes. Detective Jenkins nodded with a half-smile. "Almost, yeah…"  
"I'll contact LAPD and have them check the gun," Morgan decided. She went to her office to call her ex-colleagues back in LA and explained the whole situation to them. After they had promised they'd send someone over to Tim's house, she went to find Greg again. He had been checking the footage from the security cameras in the hotel elevators and had found Tim, dressed in black, on one of the tapes. He had also checked if Tim had left his room earlier that morning and found out he had left his room at 3.45 A.M.  
"But as long as we don't have the clothes or the gun, we still can't prove he actually robbed that store, just that he broke their security camera," Greg reminded her. Morgan sighed before agreeing with him.  
"I just don't understand where he could have hidden everything!" she said. "He couldn't have hid anything just outside of the hotel, he hasn't hidden anything in his hotel room… Well, except that photo album of course… Oh, it still makes me angry!"  
"Why don't we take a break and start thinking about this later?" Greg suggested. He held up his cell phone. "Nikki texted me to invite us both for dinner. She says she wants to have us over before she's going to eat all the food of my plate next month!"  
Morgan smiled. "Sure, I'd love to have dinner with her. I'll tell you what: we'll first go back to my place to pick up some things I can keep over at your apartment and then we'll go over there, change and meet Nikki for dinner. Maybe we can indeed forget about all of this for a while then!"  
"Deal!" Greg said. He locked his computer, safely put away the security tapes and went to the locker room with Morgan. After they had gotten out their things, they left for Morgan's apartment in Green Valley. During the short car trip, they avoided all subjects that could lead back to Tim or the case. Morgan told a story about an old classmate of hers that had once brought a snake to school for show and tell and Greg talked about the music he had been listening to with Nikki when she was still a little girl. Morgan thought it was hilarious he had been able to sing-a-long to so many Sesame street songs.  
"I was just trying to be a good babysitter!" he defended himself, while he parked his car outside her apartment. She still couldn't stop laughing.  
"I'm sorry, it's just too funny!" she grinned. Still laughing, she got out of the car. Suddenly she thought of something: "Hey, you should sing them at work and then tell David you sing them with your kids!"  
"I thought you didn't want me to tease him anymore?" he reminded her.  
"Oh, yeah… Ah, well, this is just too funny!" she decided. She opened her front door and walked straight to her bedroom to pack up the things she wanted to take over to Greg's apartment. While she was packing, Greg checked the mailbox for her and threw away everything he knew she wasn't interested in.  
"Oh, good, you got rid of all the junk mail for me," she said, walking into the kitchen with her bag hanging over her shoulder. "I think I've got everything, unless Nikki expects me to show up at her house in some sort of evening dress…"  
"Trust me, Nikki is the last person on earth to expect something like that!" Greg told her. "When she was nine, her sister wanted her to wear a dress to the Christmas party at school. She nearly brought down the house because she hated the idea so much! Honestly, she won't care what you're wearing tonight! Me… I may have a different opinion…"  
He pulled her close and kissed her until she started laughing and pushed him away.  
"Come on, she's probably waiting for us already!" she smiled. "We'll discuss my wardrobe after dinner, okay?"  
Grinning, he followed her back to his car. They quickly drove to his apartment on the other side of Las Vegas, changed and went over to Nikki's house next door. They were greeted by a golden retriever barking at them. Nikki pulled him away from them.  
"Sorry!" she said. "I promised I'd watch him while this friend of mine is out of town. He's a friendly dog, really, he just gets a little enthusiastic whenever there's a visitor! Sandy, sit! Sit!"  
The dog barked one more time before sitting down.  
"Come on in!" Nikki said, slightly pushing the dog out of the way. "Dinner's nearly ready, a couple of minutes more, I think. Can I get you something to drink in the meantime?"  
She showed them the way to the living room, even though Greg had been at her place at least a thousand times. Morgan looked around the cozy living room, which was filled with little artistic figurines, stuffed animals and pictures of killer whales and rabbits.  
"You like my decorations?" Nikki asked, entering the living room with their drinks. Morgan turned around and smiled at her. "Yeah, I do! Did you take these pictures yourself?"  
"Those of the rabbits, yes. Those of the killer whales… no," Nikki confessed. "There's one picture my parents took. By accident, I have to be honest about that! They never really cared about me much when I was little, they always left me alone with my sister. And she was always busy with her hundreds of boyfriends… I was really happy when Greg became my regular babysitter. He was the first person who actually asked how I was doing!"  
Morgan realized Nikki must have been really lonely when she was growing. She slowly started to understand why she and Greg had become such good friends.  
"He's really good at asking how someone's doing," she said, looking at her boyfriend. He smiled shyly. Nikki grinned at his shy face. "Never knows how to handle a compliment! I'll go and see if dinner's ready, okay, Tomato Face? That'll give you time to get your real face color back!"  
Laughing, she left the living room. Morgan smiled at Greg. "She's really great, Greg. I'm glad I finally met her, even though the circumstances weren't that great…"  
"Let's not go there!" Greg quickly said. "Come on, I'll show you the dinner room. It's filled with pictures of baby lions!"  
Dinner turned out to be the perfect thing to distract Morgan. Nikki and Greg both told her stories about when they were younger, which made her laugh so hard the tears started running down her face.  
"Wait till I show you pictures of him when he just started working at CSI!" Nikki told her. "You probably won't even recognize him!"  
"I was just… experimenting with my look!" Greg defended himself. Morgan looked at him, laughing. "Sweetie, I don't care what you look like, I really won't break up with you just because you used to look a little different than you do now!"  
She looked back at Nikki. "I'll need to see those pictures of course!"  
"No problem!" Nikki grinned. "Hey, what I wanted to ask you all evening already: how did you two actually get together? Greg has already told me once, but I wanna hear your version to see if he's actually telling the truth!"  
"I was!" Greg called out with his biggest innocent eyes. Morgan smiled at Nikki. "Sure! It happened about a month ago. I was still in my office, behind my computer, but instead of writing the report I was supposed to write, I was looking online and I found some very interesting pictures…"

_Carefully Morgan turned around to see if no one was watching her from the hall. When she saw the hallway was empty, she returned to her computer screen and clicked on the little picture to enlarge it. She had found a website with photos of the baseball tournament they had played with their CSI team a while ago. One of the photos was of Greg alone. She couldn't help but smile at the photo. He looked so cute! After checking again if the hallway was empty, she got out her cell phone and copied the photo to it. Smiling she looked at the small screen. Now she would be able to see his sweet smile and wonderful eyes wherever she went! She had never told anyone how much she actually liked Greg, she had always pretended to be interested in someone else. The truth was she had been dreaming about him at night ever since the first time they had met. The only problem was she'd never be able to tell him as long as they worked together…  
_"_Why are you staring at a photo of me on your cell phone?"  
__She froze. No, this couldn't be true! She quickly turned around and looked at the guy who always made her heart beat faster.  
_"_Greg, hey!" she managed to say. "What are you doing here?"  
_"_I was on my way home when I saw the light was still on in your office, so I just came by to see if you needed help with anything," he replied. "Now you answer my question: why are you staring at a photo of me on your cell phone?"  
_"_Oh, I… Well, it's just…" She tried to think of an excuse, but her mind completely failed her. There was no way she would manage to talk herself out of this one. She sighed. "Okay, I'll tell you, but not here, okay? Why don't you follow me back to my apartment?"  
__With his eyebrows raised, Greg nodded. "Okay, if that's what you want…"  
__They left LVPD and drove to her apartment in their own cars. Once inside, she looked at him and decided to just confess to the whole thing: "Okay, I like you, alright? I really, really… really like you! But you and me… It's never going to work out, because we work together! We can't date and still be colleagues, it just won't work! Everyone will find out we're dating, one of us will have to change shifts, my father will probably freak out and… It's just impossible, okay? Look, I'll delete the photo and we'll just forget this ever happened, alright? I'll get over it, don't worry! And… why aren't you saying anything?"  
__Frustrated, she looked at him. She had just told him she really liked him and he didn't even respond! What was wrong with him? Why had she even ever fallen in love with him?  
_"_Okay, if you want me to say something…" he softly said. He took a step towards her and kissed her so full of passion she felt like she was going to faint. Oh, yeah, that's why she had fallen in love with him…  
_"_Look, no one needs to know about this!" he continued with the same soft voice. "We'll keep work completely separated from our personal life and whenever we're at CSI, we're just colleagues, nothing more. We'll make it work, I promise you that! Just… please, let's give this a try!"  
_"_Convince me," she whispered, her face only inches away from his. That kiss had been too great to continue thinking about rules and what was or was not possible. She was in love with him, he was obviously just as in love with her and that they were colleagues didn't matter anymore. She just wanted him to kiss her again and do everything she had been dreaming about for months._

"Okay, okay, I don't need any more details!" Nikki quickly said. She smiled. "Wow, I'm impressed, Greg, you actually told me the truth! I thought it was such a sweet story it just couldn't be true… I wish something like that would ever happen to me…"  
"Do you have a boyfriend?" Morgan asked. Nikki shook her head. "No… All the guys I meet at work are tourists who are only in Vegas for a few days. By the time I work up the courage to ask them for their phone number, they already left again! But I'll find someone someday, I'm sure of it! And if not, I'll just get a dog like Sandy! Right, boy?"  
She rubbed the golden retriever's back. The dog barked to let her know he liked it. When he did, a piece of paper fell out of his mouth.  
"What have you got there, boy?" Nikki asked him. She picked up the piece of paper from the ground. "A one dollar bill… Where did you find that? Don't tell me I have a treasure hidden in my backyard!"  
She laughed out loud. Morgan and Greg didn't laugh, however. They looked at each other, both thinking the same thing. Tim knew where Greg lived, had he hidden the money here to try and frame Greg?  
"Where did he find that?" Greg said, getting up from the couch. Nikki looked at the dog. "Sandy, show us where you found the money! Show us! Come on, boy, show us where you found it!"  
The dog barked before he ran outside. He ran straight to the right side of the yard, where several plants seemed to be missing. Nikki groaned. "Not my plants! First the ones of the other side, now here…"  
Greg ran up to the dog, who was barking loudly now.  
"It's the money!" he said, pointing at the hole in the ground filled with one and five dollar bills. "He never spent it, he just hid it here!"  
"Wait!" Morgan said, turning towards Nikki. "You said something about the plants on the other side of your yard?"  
"Yeah, I had to throw them away cause they had been taken out of the ground like someone had been digging there," Nikki told her. "I thought it was just a cat, there's a lot of cats in the neighborhood that love to ruin my garden. That's why I was so happy when my friend asked me to watch Sandy for a few days, I was hoping he'd keep the cats away for a while!"  
"Do you remember when you saw the plants had been taken out of the ground?" Greg asked her. Nikki thought for a moment.  
"Yeah, I do," she then said, her eyebrows frowned together. "It was when I came home after the robbery… I remember how annoyed I was and that I even planned to go and talk to the neighbors about their cats! I never did, because I kept thinking about the robbery and didn't feel like going outside again…"  
Morgan realized Nikki took the robbery a lot harder than they had thought at first.  
"Nikki, do you have a shovel?" Greg asked. She nodded. "Yeah, 'course I do, it's in the shed over there!"  
Greg walked over to the shed, found a shovel and then walked over to the other side of the yard. Nikki pointed to a section near the back. "That's where my plants were. They weren't anything special, but I still liked them…"  
"If this helps us to solve our case, we'll buy you new ones and get a cat alarm for you," Morgan promised her. Nikki smiled at her. "Thanks, that's really sweet…"  
The two of them then just watched while Greg was digging. He didn't take long to find what they were looking for.  
"It's all here," he said. Morgan stepped forward and saw the black clothes and the gun lying in the hole Greg had just dug.  
"I just don't get it!" she said. "Why would he hide everything here, in Nikki's backyard? Did he know Nikki? Did he recognize her as your neighbor or what? It just doesn't make sense!"  
"I think he never meant to hide it in _Nikki_'s backyard," Greg said with a thinking smile. "I think he made a mistake… Like you said, Nikki's my neighbor… I think he miscounted and thought this was my backyard. He knows we're dating, so he tried to hide the evidence in my backyard, hoping I'd find it or that someone else would find it."  
"Makes sense," Nikki said while nodding. "But, eh, don't you need to call this in or something like that? Take it back to CSI?"  
Morgan looked at Greg. "Do you have your kit at home?"  
With an unsure look on his face, Greg shook his head. "No, it's in my locker at work… My spare one as well, I kinda forgot to bring it back home after taking it to work once… What about yours?"  
"In my locker and my spare one is at my place," she answered with a sigh. "Great, now what?"  
"Sara!" Greg suddenly said. "She knows about us, she can easily come over and help us out here!"  
"Okay, call her!" Morgan nodded. "Nikki's right, we need to take this back to CSI and process it. Then we'll finally be able to close this case and I can start forgetting about this guy who has definitely been in my life way too long!"


	6. Chapter 6

**Okay, so this is the last chapter... I hope you guys enjoyed reading it! :D**

_**Chapter 6**_

While Greg called Sara on his cell phone, Nikki took Sandy inside for a reward. Morgan quickly checked the gate which allowed access to Nikki's backyard. It had clearly been forced open, but since it didn't look like the strongest gate, whoever did it probably didn't even need a lot of force to break it open.  
Not long after Greg had called, Sara arrived at Nikki's house. She was greeted by an extremely enthusiastic Sandy, who clearly loved having so many visitors over. After Sara had petted the dog with a big smile on her face, she walked into the backyard and greeted Greg and Morgan.  
"Thank you so much, I didn't know who else to call!" Greg said with a sigh of relief. Sara nodded. "No problem. I'll bag everything for you and then you can follow me back to CSI."  
"And I…" Morgan started, but Sara cut her off: "You were never here. Greg's gonna call you from the lab and then you can come over."  
"How?" Morgan asked. "My car is back at my apartment."  
"You can take mine," Nikki immediately said. Morgan looked at her. "You sure?"  
"Yeah, no probs!" Nikki nodded. "As long as you don't forget what you promised: new plants and a cat alarm…"  
Morgan grinned at her. "Deal!"

Like Sara had suggested, Greg followed her back to CSI in his own car. When Morgan arrived at the LVPD headquarters in Nikki's car after he had called her, he was already processing the evidence they had found. He told her what he had done so far: "I've taken DNA samples off of the clothes, they still need to be taken to Henry for processing. I also found a long brown hair on the sweater which I think could be Nikki's, so I need to call her and ask her to come over to give us a DNA sample. Right now, I'm checking to see if there's any fingerprints on the bills. So far, I've already found two partials."  
He looked up from the bills at Morgan. "You know what I don't get? The guy works as a CSI in LA, or SID, whatever you call it there. Why did he not wear gloves or anything to hide his prints? They were on the camera, on the bills…"  
"I have no idea," Morgan said, shaking her head. She sighed deeply. "What do we do now? When we confront him, he's definitely gonna bring up the fact that we're dating!"  
"We'll worry about that later, okay?" Greg said. "Why don't you call Nikki and then get this over to Henry while I check the rest of these bills for prints?"  
Morgan nodded. "Okay, I'll call her and then I'll come back to help you with the prints. Henry won't need that long to check for a DNA match, he can check after we've collected Nikki's DNA."

Nikki arrived at CSI nearly an hour later in a taxi. Morgan explained to her what she was going to do, like she always did when she had to take a DNA sample, but Nikki of course already knew that.  
"Greg told me about the first time he had to take a DNA sample," she grinned. "Ask him about it when you get the chance, it's quite funny!"  
"I will," Morgan promised with a smile. She safely put away the swab she had just used and looked at Nikki. "Would you like me to show you around while I bring this over to DNA?"  
"Sure," Nikki nodded. She followed Morgan to the DNA lab, where Henry was working on the samples Greg had collected from the black clothes. When he saw Nikki, he looked up however.  
"Hi," he said with a smile. "I didn't know we had any visitors today…"  
"Henry, this is Nikki, she's a friend of Greg's and unfortunately a victim in our robbery case," Morgan told him. Henry immediately looked at Nikki with a worried face. "Are you okay?"  
"Yeah, I'm fine," she smiled. Morgan noticed it wasn't one of her usual smiles, but slightly more flirty. She hid a smile on her own face when Nikki took a small step towards Henry. "But it helps to talk about it…"  
"You know what, I'll go and see if Greg needs help," Morgan decided. She quickly left the DNA lab before grinning out loud. Greg, who was on his way to Ballistics with the gun they had found, wanted to know why.  
"You'll know when you see Nikki and Henry!" Morgan grinned.  
"Nikki and Henry?" Greg said, a surprised tone in his voice. "No way!"  
Still laughing, they entered the Ballistics lab. Xiomara quickly checked the gun for them and found nothing that surprised them: "Gun is registered to Tim Johnson, the bullet I fired from the gun, is a match to the one you found at the crime scene."  
After thanking her, they returned to the DNA lab, where Henry was still talking to Nikki. Greg looked at him. "Do you have anything for us or have you just been trying to get my best friend to go out with you?"  
Protectively, he put his arm around Nikki. Henry's face seemed to turn a little whiter. Nikki shook her head and pushed Greg's arm away. "Don't listen to him, Henry, he's just teasing you! But since the subject came up… Sure, I'll go out with you some time! Want me to wait outside while you talk to Greg and Morgan? I won't leave, I promise, at least not until I have your phone number…"  
She gave Henry another flirty smile before leaving the DNA lab. Morgan hid another smile on her face, this time because of Henry's red face.  
"Henry, results?" Greg asked him, deciding not to comment on Nikki's words.  
"Oh, yeah, right!" Henry quickly checked his computer. "The DNA you collected from the clothes is a match to Tim Johnson. The hair you found, is a match to Nikki."  
Greg thanked him before he left the DNA lab with Morgan. She looked at him and sighed. "I guess there's no way back now… We need to confront him with what we found… and risk having to tell everyone about our relationship…"  
Greg sighed as well. "You're right… Do you think you're ready for it?"  
"I don't think I'll ever be ready," she responded. She sighed another time. "Let's just get it over with then… Why don't you tell detective Jenkins what we found while I get the photo album? I'm not sure if I'm ready for that either, but I don't think I have much of a choice anymore…"  
She started to walk off, but Greg stopped her by grabbing her arm and forcing her to look at her.  
"Someone recently told me that everything's going to be alright," he reminded her. "It _is_ going to be alright, trust me!"  
She gave him a little smile. "Thanks…"  
Without thinking, she hugged him. When she pulled back, she saw that Hodges had seen their hug. With a look of hurt in his eyes, he walked off.  
"Great!" Morgan muttered. "Even more to deal with!"  
"Later, okay?" Greg said. "Go and get the photo album, I'll talk to detective Jenkins!"

After informing detective Jenkins about what they had found, Greg and Morgan waited for Tim to be brought to interrogation again. Morgan held the photo album they had collected from his hotel room tightly. Whatever happened, whatever he'd say, she needed to confront him with it, whether or not she felt ready to do it.  
Detective Jenkins brought Tim into the interrogation room and sat down opposite of him. He looked at Greg, who had said he wanted to do the talking.  
"Tim, we found the clothes you wore during the robbery and your gun," he started. "DNA is a match to you, the gun is registered to you and the bullet we fired from that gun and the one we found at the crime scene are a match. Plus, we found your fingerprints on the bills that were buried in the same backyard you buried the clothes and gun in. We also have you on video surveillance in the casino, dressed in black, hiding your gun in your sleeve, right before the robbery took place. We also know when you left your hotel room on the day of the robbery from your hotel key card. Further, we have your fingerprints on the security camera in the hotel store, but you already knew that of course."  
"I explained that!" Tim tried to defend himself.  
"With a lie," Greg immediately responded. "You robbed that hotel store, scared a young girl half to death and then hid the evidence in her backyard!"  
Tim looked at him with his eyebrows frowned. "Her backyard? I didn't hide anything in her backyard!"  
Greg showed him the photos Sara had taken in Nikki's backyard. "Yes, you did. This is where we found the clothes, the gun and the money. It's Nikki's backyard, the girl who was working at the store during the robbery."  
"That's not mine, I hid everything in your backyard!" Tim called out. Morgan saw detective Jenkins frown his eyebrows. Greg, who had seen it too but decided to ignore it, shook his head at Tim. "You made a mistake, you miscounted. I live next door to Nikki. You hid the evidence in the wrong backyard!"  
Tim looked from the photos back to Greg with his mouth open in amazement. Morgan stepped forward and looked at Tim. "Why did you do it? This isn't something the Tim I used to know would do… But then again I never thought you'd do this!"  
She threw the photo album onto the table, feeling a rush of anger going through her body.  
"You've been following me for years!" she shouted out. "You've been taking pictures of me everywhere, even here in Vegas! How could you do that?"  
Tim stared at the photo album, then looked back at her.  
"Because I love you!" he confessed. "I love you, Morgan, I've loved you for years and years! But you never wanted to go out with me… Why not? I'm the right guy for you, don't you see that? I'm the one who should be with you, not him over there!"  
He pointed at Greg. Morgan saw detective Jenkins frown for the second time. Quickly, she said: "That doesn't justify what you did! Following me, taking those pictures of me… And robbing a hotel store! What were you thinking? If you'd get caught, you could spend time in jail here in Vegas, nice and close to me?"  
"I didn't expect you to find out I did it, okay?" Tim shouted back at her. "I figured if he would find the evidence in his backyard he would either turn it in and get in trouble for having evidence in his backyard or try to get rid of it. He'd hide it from you, you'd get angry and dump him, so I would have you back. That's what I wanted, okay?"  
"Did you really expect us not to find any evidence?" Morgan said, shaking her head in surprise. "You've been working at SID for years!"  
"I know!" Tim snapped at her. "I just didn't think this through, alright? I saw the two of you together and then…"

_He felt the anger build up inside of him when he saw her kissing the other guy. How could she do this to him? She was laughing with him, she had her arms wrapped around him, she even ran her hand through his hair! Didn't she know she was supposed to be with him? When she kissed the other guy again, he turned around. He just couldn't watch it any longer. From his cell phone he called a taxi and went back to his hotel. During the ride, he felt the anger inside of him growing. Morgan belonged to him, not to any other guy! He had to get rid of him, but how?  
_"_Are you gonna stay here all night or what?" the taxi driver asked him. Without realizing it, they had arrived at the Paradise Hotel. Annoyed, Tim threw some bills at him before getting out. He rushed past the hotel store to the elevators, rode it to the sixth floor and threw the door of his room shut. Still angry, he kicked his suitcase down from the chair it had been laying on. When he did, his gun fell out. His gun… He grabbed it, went back downstairs and looked at the security camera just outside of the hotel store. If it was broken, no one would see him robbing the store. No one would know where the evidence was… until it showed up in that other guy's backyard. Smiling, he looked around to make sure there were no witnesses. Only a few more hours and then Morgan wouldn't have her horrible boyfriend anymore. Then she could finally be with him, because he was the only one in the whole word who really loved her._

Morgan turned to detective Jenkins, an ice cold look on her face. "He's all yours, Sir, we're done."  
She left the interrogation room with the photo album and walked straight over to her office. Greg followed her, expecting her to start shouting about how he dared to say he loved her. Instead, she looked at him with sad eyes. "I could really use a hug about now…"  
"But… we're at work… And… Hodges already saw us…" Greg reminded her. She shrugged her shoulders. "After what Tim said, it doesn't matter anyway. Just hug me!"  
He did as she asked. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight until she smiled at him. "Thanks, that helps a lot! So, I guess we best get started on our report, right?"  
"Don't you think…" he started, but she shook her head. "Let's write our report first of all. The rest can wait."  
He nodded, understanding she wanted to put off talking to Russell. "Sure, let's get to work."

Before an hour had passed, Russell found them and ordered them to come over to his office.  
"Would you like to tell me what happened?" he asked, sounding everything but friendly. Greg and Morgan quickly looked at each other before they started telling him about the case. Morgan even went back to her office to show him the photo album, including the picture taken outside of Greg's house.  
"So, he robbed the store to try and frame Greg, because he had gotten the wrong idea when he saw you two together when you were just discussing something about work outside the office," Russell summarized their story. Surprised, Greg and Morgan looked at each other again. What had he just said?  
"Because that's what I can tell the sheriff if she starts asking questions," Russell continued. "Unless of course you two have a different version…"  
After looking at each other another time, Morgan said: "No… we don't… Thank you…"  
Russell nodded. "Alright, off the record now. I have no problem with you two dating while working together, as long as you keep work and your private life separated. How long has this been going on?"  
"Nearly five weeks," Greg confessed reluctantly. Russell nodded again. "I figured, because that's about the same time you guys started working all your cases together. Since I found nothing weird or unusual about your reports or the evidence you processed, I can't say anything bad about you two working together. Make sure I won't have to do so in future!"  
"You won't, we promise!" Greg quickly said.  
"Around here, we'll be strictly professional!" Morgan promised. She crossed her fingers behind her back, because she knew they would always try to steal a kiss or hug from each other whenever they had the chance.  
"One more thing," Russell said, seeing they were trying to leave. "It's your choice whether or not you tell the rest of the team, who will then of course keep everything you say between us, but I do suggest you pay a visit to the under-sheriff."  
Morgan sighed. "My Dad…"  
She and Greg left Russell's office and slowly started walking down the hallway.  
"Alright, let's just do this," Morgan suddenly decided. She grabbed Greg's hand and pulled him along to her father's office. Without knocking, she walked in, looked around if there was no one else there besides her father and blurted out: "Dad, me and Greg have been dating, Russell is fine with us working together and yeah, that means I did lie about that hug you saw. I'm not a little girl anymore, so you can't tell me who I can and cannot date and workwise I guarantee you that our relationship won't get in the way of us doing our jobs."  
She stopped to catch her breath and wait for her father's reaction.  
"Okay," he just said slowly. "That is quite a story…"  
"Just… don't make a big deal about this, okay?" Morgan begged him. "Like I said, Russell's okay with it and…"  
Ecklie held up his hand to interrupt her. Unsure, she looked at Greg.  
"You're right," her father said. "You're not a little girl, I can't tell you who and who not to date. As under-sheriff I can say I expect to see nothing of all this around here. That means that hug in the interrogation room…"  
"Was wrong, I know," Morgan finished his sentence for him. "We're sorry, we both are."  
Greg quickly nodded to show Ecklie he agreed with Morgan.  
"Alright," Ecklie said. "Thanks for coming to see me. I'll talk to Russell so we can work this all out. Can I just say one last thing? As your father?"  
"Sure," Morgan nodded. Ecklie smiled. "For the record, Greg is in the category of men I would allow my little girl to date. I know he'll treat you with respect, won't you, Sanders?"  
"Oh, yes, of course, Sir!" Greg quickly said. Ecklie smiled at him. "Good. That's all. You can go now, I'm sure you two can think of a better place to be than at work!"  
"Thanks, Dad!" Morgan smiled. She left her father's office together with Greg and looked at him. "Wanna go home? Those reports… and talking to Hodges can wait till tomorrow."  
"Definitely!" Greg smiled.  
"Why don't you go ahead? I have to do something real quick before we go," she said. Greg nodded. "Yeah, sure. I'll wait for you outside, okay?"  
"Thanks!" Morgan smiled before she walked away, back to her office.

About an hour and a half later, they were back at Greg's apartment and getting ready for bed. Morgan leaned towards Greg as he put his watch and cell phone on the nightstand. "I have something for you…"  
She handed him the picture of herself in bikini Tim had taken back in LA. "I know that technically it's tampering with evidence, but I figured no one would miss one picture…"  
With a smile, Greg looked at her. "Thanks! But, to be honest, I prefer to look at you in real life!"  
He put his arms around her and kissed her. Lovingly, she ran her hand through his hair. "You can look at me whenever you like! I love you, Greg…"  
Surprised, he looked back at her. "You never said that before!"  
She smiled and kissed him. "I know. I wanted to tell you for a while now, but I just never found the right moment. I'm not sure if this is, but I knew I just had to tell you."  
He smiled back, kissed her and whispered: "I love you too… No matter how many annoying, stalking ex-colleagues you have, I will always love you!"  
After kissing him again, she softly asked: "Wanna tell everybody at work about us or do you want to continue keeping it a secret?"  
"Will you make Hodges promise not to get us in trouble?" Greg wanted to know. She nodded with a smile. "Don't worry, I'll talk to him! Hey, maybe I can get that new girl at reception to ask him out! That'll take his mind off of me!"  
"Do you think she'll want to go out with him?" Greg hesitated. Morgan nodded with a determined look in her eyes. "Oh, she'll go out with him, trust me!"  
Greg laughed at the look in her eyes.  
"Alright, then we'll tell everyone tomorrow," he decided. "But right now, I want to forget all about work, about colleagues, ex or not, and just be with you and enjoy the fact that you just told me you love me for the first time!"  
"Want me to say it again?" she whispered, pulling him closer. "Because I will, if you want me to… I love you, Greg. I love you, I lo…"  
He cut her off by kissing her, which she immediately responded to. Words were just one thing, but a kiss with love and passion was something completely different. And they both knew they would share plenty of those before morning would break.


End file.
